


Unspoken

by apple_pi



Category: The Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: First Time, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-07-15
Updated: 2005-07-15
Packaged: 2018-07-22 04:33:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7419922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apple_pi/pseuds/apple_pi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"D'you think it's possible to actually die of being tired?" Billy's accent had flattened out, lost its luster.</p><p>Andy nodded, setting his pint down with a thump. "Plutarch said a messenger who ran all the way from Marathon to Athens gasped out his news to the king and then dropped dead on the spot."</p><p>Billy, Dom and Elijah all looked steadily at him; Andy smiled and took another drink.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unspoken

Unspoken

 

_And for tired eyes every light is too bright, and for tired lips every breath too heavy, and for tired ears every word too much. —Georg Büchner, 1838_

*

“I am so fucking exhausted.”

Billy didn’t bother to reply; he was busy passing out on the bed. Dom slowly changed into t-shirt and boxers, then looked at Billy’s prone form on the bed.

“Bill.” He poked him. “Oi, Billy, get undressed. You’ll feel like shit in the morning if you don’t.” Billy didn’t move. Dom sighed again and sat on the edge of the bed to undress him. Billy rolled over when ordered to do so, lifted arms, legs and arse obediently (if never more than two inches) and all without ever opening his eyes or acknowledging Dom’s mumbled monologue on the inconsideration of Billy in particular and the Scots race in general.

Down to boxers and Billy promptly rolled onto his stomach again; Dom contemplated the view with mild interest. Billy Boyd, nearly naked, limp as a boned fish (to coin a phrase) and face-down on his—Dom’s—bed.

“Too tired,” Dom said aloud, shoving poking prodding until Billy lay beneath the duvet, then crawling in beside him. “…Ungrateful wretch.”

Billy’s arm draped over Dom’s back. “Very grateful.”

“Oh, well. That’s better, anyway.” Dom fell asleep ten seconds later.

~*~

“D’you think it’s possible to actually die of being tired?” Billy’s accent had flattened out, lost its luster.

Andy nodded, setting his pint down with a thump. “Plutarch said a messenger who ran all the way from Marathon to Athens gasped out his news to the king and then dropped dead on the spot.”

Billy, Dom and Elijah all looked steadily at him; Andy smiled and took another drink.

Billy seemed about to say something; reconsidered; said something else: “But what about this kind of tired? Not exhausted from running or anything in particular. Just. Tired. Anyone ever died from that?”

“I’m going to.” Dom toppled slowly sideways until he disappeared from view beneath the table, head on Billy’s lap.

“At least keep your hands where we can see them,” Elijah jabbed feebly.

Dom’s voice was clear and dull from below: “Which leaves my mouth doing unspeakably wonderful things because who needs hands anyhow?”

“Your mouth is unspeakable, period,” Billy tacked on automatically. Dom’s breath huffed across his thigh, warmth seeping through denim to make a hot, slightly damp spot on his jeans.

“You know you love it.”

Billy thought that yes, he probably did. But he was, in fact, too tired to say so, so he lifted his bottle again and ran the fingers of his free hand through Dom’s soft, lank hair.

~*~

“Do you think you know everything about me?” Dom flapped his latex feet under Billy’s chin.

Billy spoke to the ceiling of the trailer, reclined as far as he could in his makeup chair with his feet resting heavily in Dom’s lap. “I know far too much about you, my boy.”

“Lad. You’re Scottish, you’re supposed to say _lad_.” Dom pulled at a thread hanging from the hem of the Billy’s costume trousers.

“No, I’m supposed to say _laddie_ , but if I do I can’t put _my_ in front of it.”

“So you’re supposed to say, _I know far too much about you, laddie_.”

Billy blinked at him from beneath the Pippin curls. “Except that it sounds fucking stupid, so I’ll not be saying it. Ever.”

“I’ll be your laddie, Bill.” Dom ran a rubbery toe down Billy’s chest, and Billy grabbed his ankle and held it still.

“I know you will, Dommeh.”

“How do you know?”

Billy smiled and nestled down further, closing his eyes, smiling slightly. “Because I know everything about you.”

~*~

“I know everything about you, too.”

“Do you?”

“I do.”

Billy shifted and snuffled, scrunching his face into the soft dark place between his pillows. “Do you know that if you don’t shut your big bloody yap and I miss my nap, I’ll castrate you?”

Dom sighed, long-suffering, and wriggled closer. “Always trying to get into my pants.”

“Which you don’t wear.”

“...You do know everything about me.”

Billy opened one eye just long enough to aim a sardonic glare at Dom. “Dominic, everyone knows you don’t wear pants.” The green eye winked shut again.

“Like who?” Dom’s hand skipped restlessly up the bed between them, coming to rest on Billy’s bicep, sliding slowly across until it lay squarely on his nape. Dom squeezed gently.

“Every member of the Fellowship,” Billy mumbled. “Feels good. Don’ stop. Every single individual in the makeup and costume departments. Various birds at various clubs around Wellington. Various blokes at various clubs—ouch, _what?_ ”

“You sneaky bastard,” Dom said, going still.

“Or you could just as easily speak to yourself, and say _You obvious flaming poofter_ ,” Billy pointed out. “Don’t stop rubbing my neck unless you want to be kicked out of my house.”

Dom resumed his impromptu massage. “...Who else knows... I don’t wear pants?”

“Fuck, Dom. Everyone. Three people were talking about it in line at the grocer’s the other day. My bank teller brought it up. My cousin’s brother’s girlfriend’s father-in-law from fucking Scourie mentioned it last time he called.”

“Alright, fine.”

Billy forced his eye open again. “Dominic Monaghan, are you blushing?”

“No, I’m too tired to blush.” He was, though, bright and rosy and adorable.

“C’mere.” Billy turned over and opened his arms and Dom scooted forward without meeting his eye until they were snuggled together. “Now shut up and sleep.”

“Bossy.”

“...You do know everything about me.”

~*~

“The problem is that when we finish filming I’m all wound up and I run around getting everyone to promise to come over and watch movies and then when we get to the house I’m tired and I want them all to leave.” Dom drew in a slow, sad breath; the lengthy sentence had wearied him further.

Billy allowed the counter to continue holding him up. “The _problem_ is that you invite them all to my house and not yours.”

“Make ’em go away, Bill,” Dom mumbled, tottering across the kitchen to bury his face in Billy’s neck, wrapping his arms loosely around the smaller man. Billy’s head fell forward onto Dom’s shoulder; he turned it and tucked his face into Dom’s neck, and Dom quivered at the ticklish feel of Billy’s sharp nose poking him, then subsided.

“We could just go to your house,” Billy said. He rubbed his nose against Dom’s skin and Dom quivered again.

“Too far.”

Dom felt Billy’s ribs expand and then fall as he sighed heavily. “It’s just around the block. Git.”

“Oh, fine.” Neither man moved. The sound of the movie and various snores trickled in from the lounge; Billy and Dom propped one another up and closed their eyes, hiding from the fluorescent glare of the overhead light.

~*~

“What time is it?” Billy reached for the little travel alarm he liked better than a digital clock—it was small, and it folded up, and it didn’t _glow_ all fucking night—and decided it had yet another, previously unforeseen, advantage, in that it was solid enough to serve for bludgeoning to death certain hobbits who woke him up at three in the fucking morning. Sadly, he couldn’t seem to get a grip on it long enough to explore its potential as a blunt instrument.

Dom’s voice was raspy and nervous. “I dunno, early.”

“Are you bleeding?”

“No, it’s just—”

“Is someone else bleeding?”

“No, Bill, but—”

“You didn’t drink that much, so don’t tell me you puked on my carpet.”

“I didn’t, but I want to tell you some—”

“No.” Billy sat up just enough for leverage and put one hand on the back of Dom’s head, shoving it down onto his pillow. “Tell me after the alarm goes.” He thudded onto the mattress again and turned away, wondering when Dom had acquired his own pillow on Billy’s bed. Ah well. No point worrying about it.

“Billy, just listen.”

“No thank you.” Billy dug his face into the pillow and curled up, sleep already licking back up his spine.

But fuck if there wasn’t Dom again, warm and comfy and fucking _annoying_ , scooting closer and closer until his breath gusted across the back of Billy’s neck. “I’ve been meaning to tell you something for a while.”

“I already know what it is.” 

“You do?”

Making an enormous effort, Billy rolled over to face Dom, though his eyes remained closed. “Yes, of course I do. I know everything about you.”

A long pause, Dom’s breathing faster than Billy’s, which was obscurely disturbing and Billy almost opened his eyes but he didn’t, he kept them closed because he wanted, so badly, just to sleep, not to deal with what Dom wanted him to deal with... Billy sighed.

And finally Dom’s lips pressed briefly to his and Billy felt... something. A trickle of slow heat, turning sliding twining around surprise and unsurprise, beginning in his diaphragm, moving upward, downward, out.

“Did you know that?” Dom’s voice had slowed, thickened, and Billy opened his eyes.

“Yeah.” He looked at Dom. “I. I think I knew that.”

“I had to—I had to make sure.”

“Okay.” Billy didn’t smile, and neither did Dom.

“Billy...”

“I can’t... I can’t talk about this right now. I’m too tired, Dom.” And as Dom’s face began to change, shut, slip into disappointment resignation compensation, Billy leaned forward, eyes caught in Dom’s, and kissed him. 

Warmth, pressure, breath; and even when Billy moved back Dom’s eyes were enormous and dark and close.

“What does it mean?” Dom whispered after a while.

Billy pulled him close and kissed his lips again, then tucked Dom’s head below his own and let his eyes slide shut. 

“It means you know everything about me, too. And we don’t have to talk about this right now.”

Dom’s breathing quickened and then slowed; his hands fluttered, trapped between their chests, and then stilled, one flat and warm over Billy’s heart, the other curled loosely, knuckles pressing into Billy’s ribs.

“Can I kiss you again when the alarm goes? Can I tell you the rest?”

“I’ll kiss you. And yeah.” Billy sighed and blew Dom’s hair out of his mouth. “You can tell me, and I can tell you, too. The rest.”

“I’m going to tell you part of it now.”

“...Okay.”

“Love you, Bill.”

“Oh, that.” Billy pulled him closer yet, squeezed him as tightly as he could with his whole body yearning for sleep. “That was practically the first thing I knew about you.” His arms loosened.

“Mmph.” Dom snuffled his way deeper into Billy’s neck. “I know it about you, too.”

“...You do know everything about me.”


End file.
